Misgendering is calling someone who changed from a male to a female, “he” – and vice versa.
The fear of upsetting transgender folk is real, and Google has just announced it has removed gender identifying words from their predictive text in Gmail.
Next will be smart assistants like Alexa – they will say they and them instead of he or she.
As we talk to machines more and more, and as the fear of misgendering arises, our language will quickly evolve away from gender-specific terms.
Read More
In my Wellington days, I was young and screwed up via Aspergers, but I was young and adventurous also. Drunk, daring. I was staying in a backpackers, broke, working as a dishwasher. I applied to a TV game show – no idea how that was done pre-internet – and was successful. It was called “Face The Music”or something like that.
I drank a bottle of vodka on the train there (maybe just half, but it was all relative to my tolerance at the time), then some wine in the Green Room, and proceeded to be completely hopeless as it revolved around Top 40 music I had never heard of. Out of pure frustration I pushed the buzzer without knowing the answer, just to participate once, and went “yeah, nah”. That might of been the first utterance of that, I’m suddenly thinking.
Anyway, a bit of a disaster, entertained the hostel folks, and that was that.
Except!
An ex who I had unsuccessfully failed to locate for many years, happened to watch that episode, having never watched that show before. She had my parents details, and made contact. We met up. Nothing eventuated but I am still amazed at how she chose to watch that show when I was on it.
Not to forget the woman I met who I used to purposefully watch deliver mail in a bikini top (when I was a teen) every morning, and someone who lived in a house I knew so well I could describe every room perfectly. Both got creeped out…
Read MoreBack in the day, in NZ, I had a special friend, a young German woman who shared my love of rock’n’roll, Herman Hesse and getting stoned. We spent a lot of days together, always a mix of fun and philosophy and I was in love to some degree.
However, by night she was mostly with her boyfriend, a Satanist drummer in a very popular band. The few times he and I crossed paths there was this eerie white cloak / black cloak stand-off (we weren’t wearing cloaks, but he did often perform nude).
Fast forward quite a few months, she was in Sydney and I was passing through, hitchhiking 1000 kilometres to a wedding. The receptionist at her backpacker hostel said she was working at the Sydney Royal Easter Show, and didn’t know when she would be back.
I wandered around downtown Sydney, meditating with intent, guide her to me. And then we bumped into each other. I made it happen.
I know magic works.
It is hard (yep, even for me) to calculate the odds of bumping into someone you know, given that through backpacking I got to know a whole heap of people, and they are prone to wander, and I am out and about a lot, and lots of them are Aussies, and that’s where I am now… But it feels higher than chance, the bumping-intos.
Once, wandering through Melbourne I took a path I had never taken before, bumped into an old friend, and we dated for a year because of that.
I know magic works.
Read MoreA short turn, fun, first person shooter. Thought of in 2004. Yep, Fortnite.
Knowing when businesses are busiest. Thought of in 2006. Implemented by Google since.
I know magic exists.
On several occasions I have gone out on a clear night in the northern hemisphere, during meteor season, intent on seeing one, and failed…
I returned to England to be with a past love. Our initial romance had been but a few weeks, but we wrote to each other from opposite sides of the world and rekindled things through words.
Reunited after 3 years, it was a little awkward, especially considering how shy we both were. But the connection was strong and we evolved pretty quickly as a couple from noon until bedtime, staying at a friend’s place.
There was that awkward moment before going to bed as old lovers but new again. She was looking out the window, so I came up behind her and gave her a deep and loving hug, rested my head against hers and looked out onto the night.
I said something pretty close to “the only way this day could be any more perfect would be to see a shooting star”. And then, a heartbeat later, we saw one, not too brief, and quite certain.
The only one I have seen to this day.
I know magic exists.
Read More
I’m interested in politics, and would like to be involved one day. Victoria has a state election next weekend. I can’t stand Matthew Guy, he appears to be corrupt and not too bright, and so I won’t be voting for Liberal, regardless of how much I might like their candidates. Labor have been doing an OK job, and I don’t mind them staying in power, as I expect they will.
I figure the Liberals will fail badly next weekend, and it will be the beginning of the end for them altogether…
I have my own policies at my fantasy political party, New Foundation. (The site and policies are incomplete, but still quite substantial for what it is…). They include an end to pay on time electricity discounts, something Choice is also advocating for.
I sense that there are some minor parties with encouraging levels of support that have similar aims, goals and policies. If they were to form an alliance they could be a serious factor. All they need to do is acknowledge that they like certain policies of the other parties (and indicate where they disagree on anything), and then have a shared advertising platform.
The only policies that all 3 publicly agree on are decriminalising drugs, and restricting political donations. But I’m sure they would agree on many others, like free ambulances, big bank levies, container deposit scheme, and capping rent increases.
The Greens Party has the most comprehensive policies, many of which have been costed. I understand that smaller parties don’t have the resources to do the same.
I’ve indicated where the other parties have similar policies…
The Reason Party (previously called the Sex Party) also have these policies which I like:
And there is also the Sustainability Party
OK, the main parties do have one other policy I like:
Labor – subsidise rooftop solar power (why haven’t the Greens said the same?)
Read MoreNot my first roll of the dice. In fact my 5th mortgage application, from the same bank, in around a dozen years. Three homes and two investment properties. Every single one, we were told that we didn’t quite qualify, but when they tweaked some numbers we passed by a whisker. Each one we never missed a payment. That’s quite a history and one you would think suggests that I am good for a new mortgage.
Especially when it is a property I already have a mortgage for, and I am easily managing the repayments.
Divorce means that I need to buy “our” investment property so that just I own it. The rent covers the mortgage, and the loan to valuation ratio is 60%. The town typically has zero rental properties available, so keeping it tenanted is quite easy.
But no – I have to pass the affordability test. This is an evil thing that arose from the Global Financial Crisis due to lending practices in the USA. No such problem existed here in Australia, but our government erred on the side of caution.
The reasonable assumption is that, when asked how much they spend on various things each month, people typically under-estimate. So the test, and the numbers you provide, are more complicated than it seems. Because you are compared to everyone else who has made a loan application. If your self-assessed spending is above the average of people like you (basically single / married / dependants), then they use that number.
If you are below average in your self-assessment, even if you are completely honest, your affordability is based on the average. 50% of applicants get assigned a spending figure higher than what they state.
Guess who this disadvantages the most? The frugal, like me. I was a backpacker for 5 years, and I come from NZ. I know how to live cheaply and I do. But the bank says I must be judged by what the average Aussie spends.
On top of that, it is tedious, frustrating and embarrassing, trying to convince a bank you can afford what you already demonstrably afford.
I got there in the end, by lowering my credit card limit to $500, but it took many weeks.
It’s a 25-year mortgage. You can guarantee that somewhere along the way I’ll be without a job, and I’ll get a new credit card with a higher limit. Banks don’t check back every year to see if you can still afford the loan…
Read More
Across parallel universes, now ahead and before time, like situations cross over.
Like lightning grounding itself. Watch lightning in super-slo-mo and you will see it searching before striking.
The situations crash into each other and takeover for just a moment in the world of the others.
Only some see it happen.
Less feel it happen…
Some know to know…
What if the knowledge of a bad outcome can help the modern version of themselves?
But only for a very few, who discover it via glitches.
Read More
I love vegans, can’t stand militant vegans (there’s a war a’comin’), wish I was vegetarian, love meat, would choose to eat 7 year old mutton over lamb, and love a good argument.
In some places avocados are produced in a way detrimental to bees. Does that make vegans hypocrites? No, they are doing the best they can – they can’t ever be 100% vegan.
I would vote for a totally vegetarian world, but I won’t choose it on my own. I would happily live where you had to kill (and dress etc) what you ate, but those places are rare. So I am like most people in a modern world, with so much other stuff going on – I take the lazy, easy, what I feel like approach to food.
SPECTRUM
The Carnivore > Vegan scale is like sexuality, it is a sliding scale full of confusion, debate and denial. Hopefully we will decide that everyone is on the spectrum somewhere, and there is no right or wrong. Unlike sexuality we can make a conscious choice though, and so your place on the diet spectrum can change. And is more likely to change with education and (perhaps) religion.
Read More
Once upon a time, in my tram conductor days, I looked at everybody onboard and could feel the inner pain of each of them, and perhaps even know what that pain was – like a mentalist of suffering. I’ve kept it switched off ever since.
But what I do do now is go to places where people are happy, like bars with live bands. And take in the happiness. If I am low it helps immensely.
I have no insights into people’s happiness yet. Maybe one day.
Read More